


Of Weapons and Love Past

by arepitas



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 22:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6396805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arepitas/pseuds/arepitas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another Female Mahariel/Zevran fluff ficlet. This time featuring Diaspora Angst (tm).</p>
<p>Zevran had noticed the exquisiteness of Sol's daggers the moment they been far enough from his throat to consider himself safe. The hilts were beautifully crafted, one of them adorned with leaves, twigs and acorns, the other with delicate flowers - small, unobtrusive blossoms. She handled them with particular care, too. How she laid them down when she took them off in her tent, the careful manner she wiped them clean after every fight. As if to make absolutely sure no trace of blood remained.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Weapons and Love Past

Zevran had noticed the exquisiteness of Sol's daggers the moment they been far enough from his throat to consider himself safe. The hilts were beautifully crafted, one of them adorned with leaves, twigs and acorns, the other with delicate flowers - small, unobtrusive blossoms. She handled them with particular care, too. How she laid them down when she took them off in her tent, the careful manner she wiped them clean after every fight. As if to make absolutely sure no trace of blood remained. At first, he had thought her just a tidy person, organized and neat. Later, however, he saw the mess of clothes in her tent, the way she kept her other utensils and realized with an amused smile that that couldn't be it. It wasn't that she simply liked weapons, either, for when she found an Orlesian dagger in a bandits' camp - as beautiful as deadly, probably a bard's former weapon, she simply offered it to him. So it had to be sentimentality.

Leliana, too, had noticed Sol's careful handling of her daggers.

"You take great care with your weapons," she had remarked one day, after a fight. Sol had simply smiled as she sheathed them, and the conversation ended.

When Zevran himself had asked Sol in private she told him it was a story for another day. And so he waited. She might tell him one day - or not. Either way, there were more pressing matters at hand.

 

Sol was tired that night. It had been a long day - it had been a long month. Ever since she had joined the Grey Wardens rest had been little, and calm moments had been few. This afternoon had been one. They decided to take a break before their journey to the Frostback Mountains. Dealing with Arl Eamon and Andraste’s ashes had been enough for a day. And so they camped a few miles outside Redcliffe. Sol and Zevran seized the opportunity to train. Killing as swiftly as he did - particularly in battle - required practise, after all.

But night had fallen and after dinner Sol had decided to rest. Outside her tent Morrigan and Leliana were still chatting. Alistair's snores were audible all throughout camp and Wynne and Sten had long gone to sleep. Inside, Zevran had already laid down; his weapons, as always, close at hand. It was he who had taught Sol to never put her weapons away. She had been a hunter for her clan, yes, but not a soldier nor a fighter. She was accustomed to putting aside her weapons as soon as she reached camp. Of course, a few senior hunters always held watch at the borders of their settlements, but this was a duty one was assigned. And although Sol had had the sense to keep her weapons at her side in camp once she began travelling as a Grey Warden, she was not used to doing the same in her own tent.

"You might not be a renegade Crow, dear Warden,” Zevran had told her one day, “But it would do you well to keep your weapons at hand. Always.”

"It is often the little things that get one killed," he added, that dangerous flicker in his eye.

It made sense, of course. And it did more so once attacks and ambushes became increasingly frequent.  So Sol had taken to lay her daggers next to her when she went to sleep. At hand.

They were beautiful things, she knew. Gorgeously crafted. Daisies, violets and buttercups on one's hilt, acorn and oak leaves on the other. Despite her protests when she had received them, Sol had learned to wield them well. Zevran and Leliana had trained with her, and by now she wielded them almost with the same ease as bow and arrow. Daliah had been right after all.

"You look thoughtful," Zevran remarked, interrupting her train of thought.

"Do I? … I guess I am."

She paused for a moment. Her glance fell on the daggers, neatly arranged next to the spot where she slept.

"You asked me about my daggers, once" Sol said.

"I did."

"Do you still wish to hear the story?"

"If you would tell me," Zevran replied warmly. He sat up and turned towards her, curious.

"They were a gift." Sol said.

"Ah, from a former lover? Please tell me it is so. I do enjoy a love story."

She laughed. He was right – of course.

"Well -- yes. I suppose you would call her that," Sol replied. "Her name was Daliah. She was a city elf who joined our clan. She was running from the shemlen."

"Why so?"

"She had killed one of them. It was an accident."

"You speak as if you don't believe it," Zevran remarked.

Sol shrugged.

"It doesn’t matter," she replied.

Still, after all those years, she was not sure if Daliah’s story was true or not. But she didn't care. She had told her enough for Sol to know that, accident or not, the human had deserved his death. Daliah had been a smith's apprentice.

“The shem who died -- it was her master... She was so talented. Could do fantastic things with any metal," Sol told him.

"I am sure her talents extended beyond that.”

Sol laughed.

"They did indeed. She was ..." she trailed off, thinking.

Daliah had been many things to her. A close friend. Her first lover. They had spent many a night talking, laughing. And later...  arguing. Things became difficult after a while. It had been easy at first. Daliah was hard-working - a little rough sometimes, but always kind and eager to learn. Sol's clan worked with wood more than metal, so Daliah began to learn how to craft wood. But it wasn't easy, staying with them. Sol could tell Daliah missed the city. The wandering life was often harsh on those not accustomed to it. Daliah seemed increasingly reluctant to pack and leave when the Keeper decided to. Eventually, other clan members began to call her flat-ear. Maybe she was better off in the city, they said. She doesn't understand the old ways.

"Cariño," Zevran said softly after a while, "Are you still with me?"

His voice brought her back.

"She left. Daliah. After a while. Said she preferred to be called a knife-ear by humans than a flat-ear by her own people."

After two years travelling with them -- with her, Daliah had gone back to the city. To another alienage. The daggers were a parting gift. _Take them. I made them for a human noble - mostly for show, but they do work. And they're as good a weapon as the bows you Dalish love so much._

"I ... see," said Zevran.

He understood. At least he thought he did. The time he had spent with the Dalish had been short. And though they received him with open arms and treated him with kindness, being with them had not quite felt right. He'd felt more at ease at the brothel than among the people whose customs he knew so little of.

Sol had fallen silent again. Her gaze rested on the daggers, heavy with melancholy. She looked somewhat afraid, too.

"There is something else you wish to say," Zevran observed.

"There is," she replied. "I just -- it's hard."

"Take your time, Sol."

She sighed. Words did not come easy to her - they never did. Least of all when she was afraid. Sol did not want to lose Zevran the way she had lost Deliah. Yes, she was older now, but it was true the Dalish were proud of their ways and ... not always gracious to those who had assimilated to city life. Keepers of the lost way, and all that.

"It's difficult," she began, "Between us. Dalish and city elves."

"It is," Zevran agreed. They had may things in common, yet there was much they did not share. "Is that what you fear?"

She nodded. In some ways, leaving her clan had been a good thing. She had learned many things she wouldn't have otherwise. That city elves had their own keepers, for instance. That they kept records and some of the traditions - as best as they could.

“I was arrogant, back then. Impatient with her. For not knowing and...  remembering so little.”

Zevran smiled. He took her hand, his fingers interlacing with hers.

“Cariño,” he said, “You have been nothing but kind to me.”

 “But if-”

 “ _If_ you slight me, I promise to let you know.”

He smiled.

“Something tells me,” he went on, “this time, you will listen.”

She nodded. Smiled back.

“You Dalish have a saying about not committing the same mistake twice, no? What was it...” He paused to think.  “Something about taking only one bite of a rotten pear.”

Sol laughed. Squeezed Zevran's hand. It was an apple. But that didn't matter all that much, right now.


End file.
